This is my apartment and I like it! This is a girls' apartment! That [Chandler and Joey's] is a boys' apartment! It's dirty and it smells! This is pretty! It's so pretty! And look, it... and it's purple!

— Rachel Green, Friends, voicing her refusal to leave Monica's apartment in "The One With the Embryos"

A lady wearing purple as a sign of her femininity, whether she is girly and sweet, or graceful and mature.

For millennia, purple was the traditional colour of nobility because it was one of the most difficult (and thus expensive) colours to make with naturally occurring dyes. In fact, the Romans actually made it a crime for anyone not of the nobility to wear purple in public, cementing its status in many cultures as the colour of The Beautiful Elite. This changed some time after the Industrial Revolution kicked into high gear, when synthetic dyes became the norm rather than the exception. So formerly expensive purple dye was now just as affordable as any other colour, and thus lost much of its association with wealth.

Then as colours began to take on their now-familiar gender connotations, purple found itself increasingly on the feminine side of the gender divide because it was considered a pinker version of blue. This trope is thus a merger of two associations: purple with nobility, and purple with femininity.

Examples

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Anime & Manga

The Imperial Princesses in Code Geass wear a lot of purple, as do their brothers, some of whom, like Lelouch, are quite feminine (and he also wears a purple dress at his school'scrossdressing festival). The two oldest princesses, Cornelia and Guinevere, have purple hair as well.

Yuri Tsukikage/Cure Moonlight from HeartCatch Pretty Cure! has purple hair in both forms and a violet-accented Cure outfit, and is a Lady of War admired by her teammates for her elegance.

Hinata Hyuga in Naruto, heiress to the Hyuga clan and user of the Gentle Fist, which relies on speed and grace rather than power. Her signature colour also happens to be purple/lavender.

While Anthy Himemiya of Revolutionary Girl Utena, the Rose Bride, generally wears a red dress (or white in the movie), her hair is purple, and purple itself is a symbol for royalty and, appropriately, magic and mystery (both which make up Anthy's mystique and outer personality). Most of her outside artwork, namely monochrome drawings, utilize purple.

Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn has purple as her main outfit colour, and she's a kind and demure young girl. However, her powers as an Apocalypse Maiden make her fit Purple Is Powerful more than this.

Rei Hino has purple hair in most manga illustrations, Crystal and in the latest Sera Myu. In those three incarnations she is a graceful Ojou and her femininity is part of her characterization, specially when contrasted to Minako's spunky and ditzy personality (They pretty much play Tomboy and Girly Girl in the manga). Bonus point for having purple as her secondary colour and Purple Eyes as well.

All the girls of W.I.T.C.H. had purple as one of the colors of their costume (the other was turquoise). Seems to be a color they consciously use to portray the magical female characters in, since Orube, Elyon and Nerissa also had purple as part of their designs (or wore purple clothes at one point).

In Frozen, Queen Elsa wears a purple cape as part of her coronationregalia. Her sister Anna ends up wearing a purple cape for most of the story. Their mother Iduna wears an amethyst-purple coloured dress.

In A Bug's Life, Princess Atta, Dot, and the Queen are all purple ants.

Celia in Monsters, Inc. is a slim, purple monster, and arguably the most feminine one in Monstropolis.

In Peter Pan, Mrs. Darling, a loving and caring mother, wears a beautiful lilac dress. Her daughter even tells her how ravishing she looks in it.

Literature

In the Harry Potter series, women only seem to wear purple for formal occasions. The colour Lavender is always the specific shade. Madam Maxime typically wears black but wears a flowing gown of lavender silk for the Yule Ball. Additionally Hermione wears lavender for Bill and Fleur's wedding. It's presented as a She Cleans Up Nicely moment too.

A minor subplot in Gary Jennings Aztec. When Mixtli meets Zyanya and Beu Ribe, they are wearing blouses decorated with a "rich and permanent purple" dye. At that point, Mixtli explains that purple had been harvested from insects that lived on a certain crop and it could only be harvested once a year (and faded after numerous washings). Their father had gone to find out the source of the permanent purple, which led Mixtli on the same quest, to better albeit bittersweet results. Much later after Mixtli marries Zyanya he sells some of his stock to Tenochtitlan's elite, but his wife has more purple garments than even the Queen.

Played with in Betsy-Tacy high school years, where Fashionista, cook, dancer, and "excellent back lot football player" Tib has touches of purple in every piece of clothing she owns, all scented with lavender.

And this poem was the inspiration for the Red Hat Society, a social organization for women 50 and older, combining this trope with a playful touch of "Screw the (Fashion) Rules, I'm a Senior!".

Professional Wrestling

WWE Diva Ivory's favourite colour was purple and nearly all her outfits were purple. She also had her trademark purple scarf which she carried to the ring with her. She often referred to herself as a lady, calling the rest of the Divas sluts and skanks.

Alexa Bliss was initially colour-coded with blue, but also had a set of purple outfits. She was portrayed as a Cute Bruiser who loved everything sparkly. When she turned heel and dropped that gimmick, she switched to red.

Puppet Shows

On The Muppet Show, Miss Piggy is never seen without a pair of lavender High Class Gloves. She is the very definition of delicate, graceful femininity, and will punch out the lights of anyone who says otherwise.

Toys

Several outfits Barbie has worn have been purple, as well as several characters in the Direct-to-Video movies.

Lego Friends, the girl-oriented spin-off of LEGO, has purple as its primary colour. Most of the sets are purple and pink.

Jaina Proudmoore wore a long hooded purple mantle decorated with runes in Warcraft III, along with white clothing. By World of Warcraft, she had switched that outfit for a more elegant purple and white robe befitting her status as the ruler of Theramore.

Neptunia series: Played straight by Purple Heart and Purple Sister, natch. Also Nepgear (the non-Super Mode Purple Sister) to a lesser extent. Subverted by Neptune (non-super Purple Heart), who wears the most actual purple in her outfit, but is a chronically unmotivated slacker.

Sumire of Sakura Wars wears purple as her main colour, in both her uniform and regular outfit. Although her "graceful" aspect is just as often overridden by her being the Team Prima Donna.

Camilla from Fire Emblem Fates. She has lilac hair with some purple in her outfit, and is a serene and elegant princess who, in contrast to her seductive and sultry demeanor, has many motherly qualities.

Visual Novels

Shirley Primer from Crimson Rafflesia wears and is commonly associated with the colour purple, and she is the most feminine, graceful and soft-spoken girls of the cast.

Toki used to be drawn in a purple dress or in something that is purple, as can be seen here: [1]. Also doubles metaphorically with Purple Is Powerful, seeing that is she very wealthy and is seen of high status, being called "Lady Toki" or something of the like. Interestingly, it is also a Color Motif, seeing the purple, besides being the color of royalty and materialism (in which wealth is associated), is also the color of insanity, fitting since she is mentally ill.

Rarity, the most feminine main character, has a violet mane and tail, and even her white coat had slight lavender tint to it. Her choices in outfits for herself also tend to be biased towards purple and blue. She even wears purple camouflage at one point, while dragon-watching, which the others call her out on. She doesn't seem to mind.

Minor antagonist Trixie usually wears a purple cape and hat. As she is a stage magician, this also ties into Supernatural Is Purple.

Princess Cadance, while mostly pink, has a lot of purple in her design. Of the established princesses, she's the one who mostly closely fits the Princess Classic model, though she can fight when she has to.

The Ashleys in Recess have a tradition around this colour. When they first met in kindergarten, they were coincidentally all wearing purple, and every anniversary of that day is "Purple Day", where the girls only wear the colour purple. The episode which introduced this began with their leader, Ashley A., arriving late, but accidentally wearing yellow. She, for a brief moment, is kicked out of the club.

In Sabrina: The Animated Series when Gem is auditioning for the role of Juliet she wears a purple period gown. Notably when Sabrina plays the role, the dress she wears is pink. Also Aunt Hilda, the more feminine and fashionable of the two aunts, has a purple dress as her default outfit.

Community

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